ST. PETERSBURG, April 10. /TASS/. Specialists from Smorodintsev Research Institute of Influenza under the Russian Ministry of Health is developing another vaccine against a coronavirus, preliminary results may appear in the near future, Russian Minister of Health Mikhail Murashko announced on Saturday.

"The institution has a high scientific potential, there are both scientific, as well as production and research sites engaged in diagnostics. Today, another vaccine against the new coronavirus infection is being developed at this institute. We expect the first preliminary results ... in the near future," the minister said.

Director of the Research Institute Dmitry Lioznov told reporters that the vaccine for intranasal use is made on the basis of the influenza virus. "So this is a similar technology with Sputnik V, but in this case the influenza virus is used. The effect will hopefully be as good as that of our other vaccines," he said, adding "Clinical trials are planned for this fall, so the drug will be available in winter - next spring at the earliest". Lioznov also hopes that the drug will help not only protect the population of Russia, but also other countries from the virus.

Russia reported 4,632,688 coronavirus cases according to the federal operational headquarters for the fight against coronavirus, 4,258,279 people recovered, 102,649 died.

In late December 2019, Chinese officials informed the World Health Organization (WHO) about the outbreak of a previously unknown pneumonia in the city of Wuhan, in central China. Since then, cases of the novel coronavirus - named COVID-19 by the WHO - have been reported in every corner of the globe, including Russia. On March 11, 2020, the WHO declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic.